A Gmail account had better security than what Hillary had.’

NO ‘INTENT’ BY HILLARY, SAYS FBI’s COMEY -BUT WHAT ABOUT THE PRIVATE SERVER, etc?

Just the unprecedented action of having a private email server in her home basement seemed like enough ‘intent’ to many of those who questioned FBI director James Comey in a hastily called ’emergency’ select committee hearing following a surprising ( to many) innocent verdict of HIllary Clinton and her private server/email dust-up. But Comey came back often to his favorite word, almost as if trying to find a way to excuse her from the dozens of infractions he freely attributed to her. Yes, she was GUILTY of those, but not enough to be prosecuted, Comey would infer again and again.

It was a very informative and valuable 4 and 1/2 hour session during which Comey was grilled by over 20 House and Senate members including GOP stalwarts including Trey Gowdy, Jim Jordan, chairman Jayson Chavetz, who all seemed to offer key questions surrounding Comey’s decision as well as lesser known players such as Will Hurd of Texas. On the other side of the ledger, the Democratic questioners, led by Elijah Cummings, seemed to mostly offer apologetic comments and self-serving questions to Comey, for whom they felt was called to the meeting unnecessarily after a final decision to let Clinton go free, despite Comey’s long list of grievances involving Hillary, her emails and private server.

As much as Comey would criticize Clinton, he would never go so far as to call her a liar, unlike General Patraeus, to whom he freely attributed the term. But many surprising inconsistencies and omissions came up during the session, a hearing that will surely lead to further developments and negative publicity for Clinton, the presumed Democratic candidate for President. The long Benghazi Select Committee Hearings were criticized as a ‘witch hunt’ by many, despite the fact that if it weren’t for those we would never have known of Clinton’s private server. Though only in a single session, so far, this Select Committee hearing offered some new and startling developments, such as:

– ‘NO INTENT by HILLARY’- INTENT was the word of the day and it seemed like Comey’s modus operandi for letting HIllary Clinton skate free. It’s as if the previously respected FBI head found a ‘loophole’ in the law to save not only his skin but those of the administration he worked for. Despite her unprecedented act of installing a private server in her home ,deleting some 30,000 emails including over 100 classified and various other acts he called ‘serious’ breaches, Comey would refused to find incriminating fault to incarcerate or even punish Clinton. Again and again he stated that he was just doing his job as FBI director, which precluded him from doing much else -not even suggesting to the Justice Department that there should be some kind of reprimand – though he admitted that if someone did the same thing in his FBI they likely be punished.

– NO PRECEDENT – Almost as key as her supposed lack of ‘intent’ was that the FBI could only find one other similar case study with which to compare Hillary’s case, while Comey believed it would be too hard to prove intent against Hillary since there was no good , relatable precedent.

In truth, one congressman brought up the case of Brian Nishamura (sp) as a similar case along with the codes 793F or 1024 or title 18 for getting people off. Gowdy then claimed that you don’t need a precedent to punish someone like her. The FBI is run so insularly, which is part of te problem, according to some.

– HILLARY TOO ‘UNSOPHISTICATED’ regarding classified email and technology to be guilty – Comey would ‘let off’ Clinton for being not being ‘ sophisticated’ enough to recognize a classified document with the ‘C’ notation after admitting most in a similar position would have been well aware of the symbol for ‘classified.’ . In so doing, he accepted that her underlings had probably done the dirty work of altering documents to not include the classified designation while forwarding those up to Hillary. He accepted the explanation that Hillary did not know about the classified emails.

‘YOU MEAN WITH A CLOTH?’ was how Hillary answered a previous testimony question about cleaning her private server. Comey brushed that one aside, again, being exceedingly generous to a person in Hillary’s position, so much so It’s almost laughable. Other Hillary statements, made in public but disregarded by Comey include:

– ‘I turned over ALL the emails.’

– ‘My attorneys went through every email’

– ‘Nothing was marked ‘classified’ in my emails’

That Hillary likely contradicted these statements at her FBI interview doesn’t seem to matter. Comey didn’t tell us anything, but , perhaps transcripts of the interview will shed some further light on Hillary’s possible contradictions, for what it’s worth. Many House members thought any real negligence was no excuse for Hillary.

‘NO LIES’ – So much for those above statements, Comey said he wasn’t able to find any ‘lies’ in Hillary’s testimony during the entire year investigation, despite the fact that many of her answers were direct opposite from statements she had given in public, like those above. Comey insisted he wasn’t interested in her public statements. It was interesting that the FBI waited until the very end to interview HIllary – and not under oath, AND WITHOUT COMEY PRESENT – perhaps so as not to get too close to the situation and risk any further implication, himself. In addition, Hillary wasn’t even under oath during the interview and probably only showed up, voluntarily, the last day, after it had come down (behind the scenes) that she wouldn’t be indicted. Comey wasn’t able to recall many of her answers, probably due to the fact he wasn’t there at her interview. At the request of Chavetz and others, Comey promised transcripts of the interview, as admissible. Again, Comey freely spoke of Patraeus’ ‘lies’ but refused to attributed a single lie to HIllary; perhaps the fact that Patraeus was more honest and admitted to mistakes cost him, as Comey considered Patraeus’ case much more serious than Clinton’s and worthy of jail time if not punishment by the FBI.

Perhaps Comey didn’t want to find any lies in Hillary’s statements as he admitted that would give him another avenue for indicting Hillary – an avenue he probably didn’t want to go down., i.e. PERJURY. That Hillary broke so many laws should have been enough, by themeselves, for a different outcome. But, not according to Comey

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HACKED SERVER – Comey admitted that it probably wouldn’t make any difference as far as indicting Hillary if her server had been hacked. He said there was no definite knowledge of such despite one of the questioners offering a litany of other hacked governmental servers including those of Brenner, Klapper and Guiliani

One of the big issues for the Select Committee members was the security risk with Hillary’s private server, that the criminal element could get a hold of Hillary’s emails.

DOUBLE STANDARD: Comey repeatedly denied there was any ‘double standard’ in the way he treated HIllary vs. someone else who might have been in a similar position. He did admit, however, that others in similar situations could get indicted. Basically, the only other way she could get indicted was if she perjured herself, as we understood Comey. And, Comey steered clear of calling any of the many contradictions by HIllary ‘lies,’ so she wouldn’t have to go down that road, we speculate.

OTHER NOTES THAT CAME OUT OF HEARING:

– Clinton’s right hand person, Huma Abedin admitted in earlier questioning that Hillary had the private server specifically to keep emails private. She also admitted , according to a Fox report, that Hillary burned her daily schedules.

– ‘A Gmail account had better security that what she had.’

– Hillary was ‘unaware of classification requirements, according to Comey, and that ‘lots of people’ are unaware of them.

– Gowdy thought the investigation should be more a gross negligence case than just about intent.

REMAINING QUESTIONS:

Why didn’t Hillary have to testify under oath?

Why didn’t Comey show up at this last key interview, with Hillary

Why did they wait until the bitter end to interview Hillary? Why didn’t they pin her down with key questions?

Why did Hillary wait two years to return the server and four years to delete emails?

– COMEY BACKGROUND: One thing most interesting to come out of all of this is from a man who worked with and knows Comey, who stated that Comey’s good reputation has largely come on indicting lesser known people with bad reputations. It’s likely he gets caught up in the glamour of celebrity as he hasn’t had a record of indicting people of HIllary’s fame, according to the gentleman whose name we don’t recall from one of the talk shows.

OTHER NOTES OF INTEREST:

– Just a week ago, before he boarded in Los Angeles for an unlikely impromptu visit with Secretary of State Loretta Lynch , Bill Clinton called the FBI investigation a witch hunt, or perhaps said in more liely words. Democratic Chairman Wasserman-shultz clained that ‘Clinton is not the target’ of the investigation,’ according to one of the House questioners.

– It was the Inspector General of their own administration- not the Republicans- who called for the FBI investigation, contrary to the belief of many – especially Democrats

BOTTOM LINE: If many of the questions are not out of the FBI director’s jurisdiction, as Comey indicated, then whose jurisdiction are they in? Comey admitted to a hypothetical question that if the next President did the same exact things as Hillary , that President , too, would not be indicted. Then, who is it that will answer? Why have laws? Why spend money and time on all these investigations… including Benghazi, IRS, etc., when everyone keeps getting let off the hook with no accountability???

PERSONAL OBSERVATIONS:

WORSE THAN PUNISHMENT? It’s possible that Hillary will look even worse in the public’s eyes, getting off scot free despite being fingered on so many issues by Comey and the FBI